other performances of this nature, which are now to be mentioned, of not inferior merit.

De Foe published, in 1722, A Journal of the Plague in 1665. The Author's artifice consists in fixing the reader's attention by the deep diftrefs of fellow-men; and, by recalling the reader's recollection to striking examples of mortality, he endeavours to inculcate the uncertainty of life, and the usefulnefs of reformation. In 1724, De Foe published The great Law of Subordination. This is an admirable commentary on the Unfufferable Behaviour of Servants. Yet, though he interest by his mode, inform by his facts, and convince by his argument, he fails at last, by expecting from law what must proceed from manners. Our Author gave the Political History of the Devil, in 1726. The matter and the mode conjoin to make this a charming performance. He engages poetry and profe, reasoning and wit, perfuafion and ridicule, on the fide of religion and morals, with wonderful efficacy. De Foe wrote a system of magic in 1726. This may be be properly regarded as a fupplement to the History of the Devil. His end and his execution are exactly the fame. He could fee no great harm in the present pretenders to magic, if the poor people would but keep their money in their pockets; and that they fhould have their pockets picked by fuch an unperforming, unmeaning, ignorant crew as these are, is the only magic De Foe could fee in the whole fcience. But the reader will difcover in our Author's fyftem extenfive erudition, falutary remark, and useful fatire. De Foe published in 1727, his Treatife on the Ufe and Abuse of the Marriage-Bed. The Author had begun this performance thirty years

before:

before he delayed the publication, though it had been long finifhed, in hopes of reformation. But being now grown old, and out of the reach of fcandal, and defpairing of amendment from a vicious age, he thought proper to clofe his days with this fatire. He appealed to that Judge, before whom he expected foon to appear, that as he had done it with an upright intention, fo he had ufed his utmost endeavour to perform it in a manner, which was the least liable to reflection, and the most answerable to the end of it-the reformation of the guilty. After fuch an appeal, and fuch affeverations, I will only remark, that this is an excellent book with an improper titlepage.

We are now to confider our Author's Tours. He published his Travels through England, in 1724 and 1725; and through Scotland, in 1727. De Foe was not one of thofe travellers who feldom quit the banks of the Thames. He had made wide excurfions over all those countries, with obfervant eyes and a vigorous intellec&. The great artifice of these volumes confifts in the frequent mention of fuch men and things, as are always welcome to the reader's mind.

De Foe's Commercial Tracts are to be reviewed laftly. Whether his fancy gradually failed, as age haftily advanced, I am unable to tell. He certainly began, in 1726, to employ his pen more frequently on the real business of common life. He published, in 1727, The Complete English Tradesman; directing him in the feveral parts of trade. A fecond volume foon after followed, which was addreffed chiefly to the more experienced and more opulent traders. In these

3

these treatises the tradefman found many directions of business, and many leffons of prudence. De Foe was not one of those writers, who confider private vices as public benefits: GOD forbid, he exclaims, that I fhould be understood to prompt the vices of the age, in order to promote any practice of traffic: trade need not be destroyed though vice were mortally wounded. With this falutary spirit he published, in 1728, A Plan of the English Commerce. This seems to be the conclufion of what he had begun in 1713. In 1728, Gee printed his Trade and Navigation confidered. De Foe infifted, that our industry, our commerce, our opulence, and our people, had increased and were increasing. Gee reprefented that our manufactures had received mortal ftabs; that our poor were deftitute, and our country miferable. De Foe maintained the truth, which experience has taught to unwilling auditors. Gee afferted the falfehood, without knowing the fact: yet Gee is quoted, while De Foe, with all his knowledge of the fubject, as a commercial writer, is almost forgotten. The reason may be found perhaps in the characteriftic remark with which he opens his plan: Trade, like religion, is what every body talks of, but few understand.

When curiofity has contemplated fuch copioufnefs, fuch variety, and fuch excellence, it naturally inquires, which was the laft of De Foe's performances? Were we to determine from the date of the title'page, the Plan of Commerce must be admitted to be his laft. But if we must judge from his prefatory declaration, in The Abuse of the Marriage-Bed, where he talks of clofing his days with this fatire, which he was fo far from feeing caufe of being afhamed

afhamed of, that he hoped he should not be ashamed of it where he was going to account for it, we must finally decide, that our Author closed his career with this upright intention for the good of man

kind."

De Foe, after those innumerable labours, which I have thus endeavoured to recal to the public recollection, died in April, 1731, within the parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, London, at an age, if he were born in 1663, when it was time to prepare for ・his laft voyage. He left a widow, Sufannah, who did not long furvive him, and fix fons and daughters, whom he boasts of having educated as well as his circumftances would admit. His fon Daniel is faid to have emigrated to Carolina; of Benjamin, his fecond fon, no account can be given. His youngest daughter Sophia, married Mr. Henry Baker, a perfon more refpectable as a philofopher than a poet, who died in 1774, at the age of feventy." His daughter Maria married one Langley; but Hannah and Henrietta probably remained unmarried, since they were heireffes only of a name, which did not recommend them. With regard to

Norton, from Daniel and Oftræa sprung *,
Blefs'd with his father's front, and mother's tongue,

It is only faid, that he was a wretched writer in the Flying Poft, and the author of Alderman Barber's

*

Pope had collected this fcandal from Savage, who fays in his preface to his Author to be Let, "Had it not been an honefter livelihood for Mr. Norton, (Daniel De Foe's fon of love by a lady who vended oyfters) to have dealt in a fifh-market, than to be dealing out the dialects of Billingfgate in the Flying Polt?"

VOL. II.

F f

Life

Life. De Foe probably died infolvent; for letters of administration on his goods and chattels were granted to Mary Brooke, widow, a creditrix, in September 1733, after fummoning in official form the next of kin to appear *. John Dunton †, who perfonally knew our Author, describes him, in 1705, as a man of good parts and clear fenfe; of a converfation, ingenious and brifk; of a spirit, enterprising and bold, but of little prudence; with good nature and real honesty. Of his petty habits little now can be told, more than he has thus confeffed himself #: "GOD, I thank thee, I am not a drunkard, or a fwearer, or a whoremafter, or a bufy-body, or idle, or revengeful; and though this be true, and I challenge all the world to prove the contrary, yet, I muft own, I fee small fatisfaction in all the negatives of common virtues; for though I have not been guilty of any of thefe vices, nor of many more, I have nothing to infer from thence, but Te Deum laudamus." He fays himself

Confeffion will anticipate reproach,

He that reviles us then, reviles too much;
All fatire ceases when the men repent,
'Tis cruelty to lash the penitent.

When De Foe had arrived at sixty-five, while he was encumbered with a family, and, I fear, pinched with penury, Pope endeavoured, by repeated strokes, to bring his gray hairs with forrow to the grave. This he did without propriety, and, as far as appears,

*The above mentioned particulars were discovered by search ing the books at Doctors Commons.-† Life and Errors, 239-40 In the preface to his Reformation.

without